Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#111

Post by guerrilla » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #79

ouid wrote: post #53

Morality and law both work like mathematics. This means that my beliefs are constructed, and once I have a construction, the only in bounds way to convince me to change my mind about them is to show me that my beliefs are inconsistent. Moreover, understanding someone who has already demonstrated an inconsistent belief system is easy. They believe X because they believe something and its negation, and at least one of…

To add to this, _everyone_ has some kind of inconsistent belief system. It's fairly simple to determine this, when people get defensive it's almost certainly based on something incongruous between their beliefs and actions, or possibly broaches a belief they hold to be true, but are unable to demonstrate why it's true. Therefore causing defensive behavior when challenged. I.E., very few people get upset if you say "t…

> To add to this, _everyone_ has some kind of inconsistent belief system. It's fairly simple to determine this, when people get defensive it's almost certainly based on something incongruous between their beliefs and actions, or possibly broaches a belief they hold to be true, but are unable to demonstrate why it's true. Therefore causing defensive behavior when challenged.

This is silly folk psychology. There are many reasons people get upset when people contradict them, raging from respect issues to believing that such contradictions are actual mortal dangers. People get quite upset when you disagree with their belief that all people have a right to life and counter with the proposition that the group they belong to should be exterminated, for example. It has nothing to do with their alleged inability to debate you. It's that you've indicate you're a threat to their life. People get quite upset when you strawman them or condescend or patronize in your response. There's a whole rainbow of reasons to get upset and very few of them are about some inability to debate you.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#112

Post by lazide » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #28

> There’s a certain phenomenon I often wonder about, one that only seems to occur with culture war topics. I mean, the term "culture war" itself is part of the "conservative" vocabulary in that issue. So I can see why the whole thing is not easy.

Personally I use it because it’s descriptive. Hard lines being drawn, people unwilling to even talk with others based on ideological labels, economic sanctions against ‘offenders’, propaganda clearly targeted at specific identifiable groups used to raise funds and attack the ‘other’ side, fear and loathing/us vs them.

I have an aunt who for economic reasons moved to what she called ‘Trump country’, and she legitimately feared for her life. She got death threats on Facebook when she tried to argue with some of her neighbors on ideological lines. She fell and hurt herself really badly, and everyone pitched in and has been helping her recover though.

I haven’t seen it used much anywhere else with any regularity, but I have no interest in following any propaganda outlets anywhere and gave up regularly reading any news 6 months or so ago.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#113

Post by elliekelly » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #29

lkxijlewlf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not fair. Those extremists are succeeding in pushing their agenda.

Show me a law on the books in any state that would outlaw abortion in the case of rape. Obviously it would be a "trigger law" since states can't actually have such a law right now, but no such law exists as far as I'm aware. Unless you can do that, it's not fair to claim that those extremists are succeeding in pushing anything. Edit: I'm not going to individually address all of the dishonest rhetoric from the article…

Your edit is totally moving the goalposts. Do you realize many women won't even know they're pregnant until after the six weeks? By which point it will be much too late to get a legal abortion.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#114

Post by UncleEntity » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #74

nicoburns wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I strongly disagree with such a position. But it seems clear to me that many such people: 1. Believe that the foetus is alive (and often also that it is human) 2. Believe that life is sacred or otherwise precious. 3. Believe that the foetus's right to life outweighs the mother's right the self-determine use of her body. I can understand how one can have a thought process like that even if I think it's wrong in…

People certainly do believe these things and I don’t know if it’s even something they can be “logically” wrong about. Where they are factually wrong is that they think they’re traditional but these are fully modern ideas. The actual Jewish tradition is against several of those; the actual Christian tradition may be for them, but the idea that you should actually read the Bible, know what an official position is, or d…

> And Protestants weren’t against abortion until recently, because they defined themselves as against Catholicism.

Did they really have to have an official position when the state said it was illegal?

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#115

Post by ethanbond » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

h2odragon wrote: post #56

guerrilla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Become? I think one could argue it's less so than ever. Remember blasphemy and the inquisition? Do you think people were more tolerant prior to the 20th century, what about in the 1950s? I think until recently responses were pretty violent in some cases and could lead to quite some consequences. I don't really know, but I think it's worth considering.

Blasphemy is alive and well! Try saying you doubt the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines. The reaction is the same.

Should read up a bit more on what the "reaction" to blasphemy was back in the day (at least some of the days, some of the places anyway). Tell you what, it wasn't people calling you an idiot on the internet.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#116

Post by Veen » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #28

> There’s a certain phenomenon I often wonder about, one that only seems to occur with culture war topics. I mean, the term "culture war" itself is part of the "conservative" vocabulary in that issue. So I can see why the whole thing is not easy.

In my experience, it tends to be used more often by left-wing critics accusing conservatives of engaging in a culture war. The conservative advances a position, and the left-wing person responds that the position is chosen not on its merits but to further the aims of a culture war. It's a way of not having to respond to the substance of a position.

Then again, I suppose I have an availability bias. I only see the term used by people I'm paying attention to.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#117

Post by unyttigfjelltol » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #96

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timing is notable, coming on the heels of an emphatic conservative critique of compelled vaccination . For the first time in memory the right side of the aisle has been arguing for bodily autonomy and the left for the state's right to compel people to accept medical treatment over objection (or even an extended form of home-confinement). It's the first time in memory I have some hope the different sides of the de…

Where in the U.S. (other than in the military, where different structures apply) has anyone been compelled to be vaccinated?

Even in the military the compulsion was the prospect of dishonorable discharge. Where I live both government employees and private employees have been fired for not complying with vaccination mandates, and again the issue is political alignment not whether people are being jabbed without consent.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#118

Post by everyone » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

Instinctual human behaviour. We're programmed to divide into groups of us or them. Being part of a group leads to benefits from that group, but, freeloaders could just profess loyalty, get the benefits and move on. So we have an instinct to fight freeloaders by having genuine members of the group make a difficult to fake concession or sacrifice of some kind. Which could be something like genital mutilation, or, maintaining a clearly irrational belief at all times for your entire life, or, at all times treating the others like inhuman scum and having 0 tolerance for any of their ideas, or usually, a combination of such things.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#119

Post by stale2002 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

ouid wrote: post #53

Morality and law both work like mathematics. This means that my beliefs are constructed, and once I have a construction, the only in bounds way to convince me to change my mind about them is to show me that my beliefs are inconsistent. Moreover, understanding someone who has already demonstrated an inconsistent belief system is easy. They believe X because they believe something and its negation, and at least one of…

No, thats a pretty bad way of thinking about things.

A person can be 99% correct on the issue, and you coming in, and find a single, tiny, irrelevant flaw or absurd edge case does not overrule the 99% correctness of the original position.

Instead of that, it is perfectly possible to compare and differentiate between people who are mostly right, and people who are very wrong on most of it.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#120

Post by koboll » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

> So, here’s a timeline: The 14th amendment was passed in 1868. For 135 years, it was perfectly consistent with that amendment for states to put people in jail for having the wrong kind of sex. Then, one day, it wasn’t anymore.

This is wrong. When precedent is overturned, it's because the law struck down was never consistent with the amendment(s) at issue.

Segregation was not perfectly consistent with the 14th Amendment prior to Brown v. Board, it was never consistent with it, from the time of its passage. The court upheld it in Plessy v. Ferguson not because it was okay then and the 'living document' subsequently changed and it became not-okay, but because the court made a glaringly wrong decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.